Comic-Con: Julie Plec Talks THE ORIGINALS, What’s Coming in Season 2, New Characters, the Possiblity of a Caroline Crossover, and More

Spin-offs are a tough gig, but with The Originals the CW has an undeniable success on their hands. Building on the mythology established in The Vampire Diaries, creator Julie Plec followed original vampires Klaus (Joseph Morgan), Elijah (Daniel Gillies), and Rebekah (Claire Holt) to New Orleans where they forged new alliances, battled old foes, and of course, had it out with each other on the regular.

In anticipation of the second season, the cast and crew were on hand at Comic-Con 2014, but before their panel I sat down for a roundtable interview with executive producer/showrunner Julie Plec. She talked about some new characters heating things up in season two, if we can ever expect to see Caroline, what is going to be the biggest threat to the original family, Klaus’s biological father, and more. Check out what she had to say about The Originals season 2 after the jump.

Question: So do you just never sleep?

JULIE PLEC: No, I do sleep and it’s so funny because that’s what people say. They’re like, “I don’t know how you do it. You must get no sleep.” I actually do get the right amount of sleep every night. That’s my rule. But if I’m writing until six in the morning I sleep until two in the afternoon and it’s the only thing that keeps me healthy and sane. Last night, for example, I got six hours of sleep and it’s now three o’clock and I’m ready to fall over. It’s an unconventional way of approaching business, because most people think you get up early in the morning and you go to bed at night. I will just work around the clock and then when I go to bed I go to bed for eight hours and then I just keep going until I have to go to bed again. But I never get sick. It’s awesome.

I’m really interested in some of the new characters you’re going to introduce – Daniel Sharman’s characters and we know that Josh is going to be getting a love interest.

PLEC: Possibly, yes.

What can you say about those guys?

PLEC: Daniel Sharman I can talk about. He’s playing this new character Caleb, who basically exists to be a little bit of a chaos bringer and his really terrific and handsome way, enters Davina’s life and immediately makes an impact. He’s a fun character to watch. He’s kind of up to no good, but he’s one of those boys that you don’t care because his level of charm is fantastic. I’m excited about him. We’ve only shot him very limited stuff so far, but we’ve got big story plans coming up in the next few. Aden hasn’t been cast yet, but he’s meant to make his first appearance in episode four, not as a Josh love interest, but yes as gay character and a werewolf to boot. So we’ll see what cooks up there.

What is going to be more of a danger to the Originals, an outside villain or their own family?

PLEC: Well, it’s both, but I would say the problem is that they know how to deal with the outside villain. What they are having a harder time dealing with are the levels of just base wrongness of their own family and that throws them all off their game individually.

We know there’s no official plans to get Caroline on the show yet, but are you guys going to be planting any seeds in the narrative that indicate her presence?

PLEC: Yeah, we’ve talked about – there’s a conversation Klaus is going to be having with someone who has been keeping observations on his past and who will probably mention the connection that Klaus had with a particular woman in his past and reference Caroline. Obviously that was a big moment, a big relationship for him and continues to linger in his heart and his brain. He’s got eternal plans I think he declared. Yes, we haven’t erased her from the narrative at all. We’re biding our time until there’s an opportunity to bring them together or not bring them together depending on where the story goes.

I’m from New Zealand so I have to ask, what has Daniel Gilles brought to the show?

PLEC: Oh God, Daniel Gilles is just – he’s so creative with his choices because he won’t just say the words and just lay them out there for you, he will paint them, he’ll embellish them, he’ll add layers, he’ll decorate and scrape and design. He’s a real artist. He’s really gifted with his craft, so being able to have him play Elijah has just been- I mean the reason the show exists is Daniel’s gift and Joe’s gift as actors. I’m super grateful for both of them.

When it comes down to Klaus’s biological dad, do you think we’re ever going to have him introduced?

PLEC: I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that the story about his biological father will be told. As Klaus is kind of realizing old, past pains in his old family and his old history, we’ll learn the story of how Esther met and fell in love with the biological father and how heartbreaking it was that Michael’s fury led to his demise. So it will bring up a lot for Klaus and it will give Klaus some thinking to do.

So is Hope officially gone for some time to come?

PLEC: Hope is officially not able to be in the city of New Orleans and frankly not able to be with any of the Mikaelson’s. The fact that Rebekah is able to take her away and kind of disappear is about the best we’re going to get for keeping her safe. This season we will be dealing with the continued threat to her existence and a continued concern on the part of our Original family and Haley to make sure she remains safe and a lot of things are going to come up that put that into jeopardy. We will probably get to see her, the baby, but it certainly won’t be in New Orleans.

And Rebekah?

PLEC: And…possibly Rebekah, yes.

We’ve seen the magical artifacts left, will that be anything going forward?

PLEC: Yes, we’re going to reintroduce those early on and we’re actually going to realize that there are characters on the show that know a thing or two about them that we wouldn’t have expected.

It was such an amazing season finale. I literally cried.

PLEC: I cried too [laughs]. I did. I was like, “This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”